Not Peace but a Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam by Robert Spencer

punished me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon Whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the wealth of the archons and the offspring of their error, of their empty glory. And I was laughing at their ignorance. 84
    Gnostics who left the Roman Empire to escape persecution in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries may have made their way into Arabia, for this idea of an illusory and deceptive Crucifixion certainly infiltrated the Qur’an and Islamic tradition. The idea that another was crucified in Jesus’ place often led the Gnostics to identify the crucified one as the apostle Thomas, since he was “called the twin” (John 11:16). In Gnostic literature, Thomas is frequently called “Judas Thomas,” a name he never bears in the canonical Gospels, but one which easily led to the idea that the one who was crucified was actually Judas Iscariot—a notion that is found in Muslim tradition. 85
    Other Muslim sources offer other candidates for the one who was crucified and elaborate on the theme that someone was made to resemble Jesus. Ibn Kathir claims that the Jews compelled “the king of Damascus at that time, a Greek polytheist who worshipped the stars,” to have Jesus arrested. Jesus, in response, asked his companions: “Who volunteers to be made to look like me, for which he will be my companion in Paradise?”
    When one young man agreed to take on this task, “Allah made the young man look exactly like ‘Isa, while a hole opened in the roof of the house, and ‘Isa was made to sleep and ascended to heaven while asleep.” Then, “those surrounding the house saw the man who looked like ‘Isa, they thought that he was ‘Isa. So they took him at night, crucified him and placed a crown of thorns on his head. The Jews then boasted that they killed ‘Isa, and some Christians accepted their false claim, due to their ignorance and lack of reason.” 86
    However the deception was accomplished, Muslim scholars generally explain that Jesus could not have been crucified because it would have been impossible for Allah’s prophet to be so defeated and destroyed. Considering, however, how often the Qur’an excoriates the Jews for killing the prophets, 87 this explanation is curious, and raises more questions than it answers.
    One of the most important questions that it raises concerns the Resurrection of Christ. Right after saying that it only appeared to the Jews that they had crucified Jesus, the Qur’an says that Allah “raised him up to Him” (4:157). Does this mean that he ascended into heaven? There is no such belief in Islamic tradition, although another Qur’anic passage also has Jesus saying: “Peace be upon me, the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised up alive!” (19:33). These cryptic statements seem to assume that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, but this is nowhere stated in Islam; all that is stated positively is that he was not crucified. When Islamic authorities deal with the segments of these verses about Allah raising up Jesus to himself, they cast them in the future. 88
    Jesus, nephew of Moses
    The third chapter of the Qur’an is entitled “The Family of Imran.” Imran is Amram, who was the father of Moses and Aaron (Ex. 6:20). Moses and Aaron had a sister, Miriam, who was a prophetess (Exod. 15:20). In Arabic, the names “Miriam” and “Mary” are identical: Maryam . Apparently confusing the two, the Qur’an records Mary the mother of Jesus as being born to Imran’s wife: “When the wife of Imran said, ‘Lord, I have vowed to Thee, in dedication, what is within my womb. Receive Thou this from me; Thou hearest, and knowest.’ And when she gave birth to her she said, ‘Lord, I have given birth to her, a female.’ (And God knew very well what she had given